


You Oughta Know

by altessah



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:19:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1250782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altessah/pseuds/altessah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annabeth’s been dating Luke for five months, despite the insistence from her "best friend" that he doesn't love her nearly as much as she wants him to. But at eleven fifty seven on the fourteenth of February, she receives the shocking truth, and has no one to run to but the person she’s the most angry with — Percy Jackson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Oughta Know

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this one since Valentine's Day -- I hope you like it! I don't own PJO, or 'You Oughta Know' by Alanis Morissette.

I’m probably going to Hell, because when my phone lit up with her name at eleven fifty seven on the fourteenth of February, I smiled.

I pictured her as I picked it up: balanced on the staircase by her front door in that new red sundress she had been so excited to buy. Her knees were probably pulled to her chest, her fingers trembling as they struggled to dial my number.

I’m _definitely_ going to Hell, because when I answered Annabeth’s call at midnight on the fourteenth of February, I almost laughed.

As I hit the green button with my thumb, silencing my ringtone, I could visualize the tightness of her jaw, meaning she was biting back sobs, and her blonde hair hanging in her face like a protective curtain (she wouldn’t want the partygoers who passed her to see the tears filling her lower lids). Pressing the phone to my cheek, I imagined her firmly set lips and her trembling chin.

“Hey,” I said briskly.

I hoped that she couldn’t hear cheerfulness in my voice. I might not have been cruel enough to laugh at her, but I sure wanted to. After everything that she put me through, she certainly deserved to be laughed at. Some part of me was still angry with her for dismissing me the second she met _him_ , and I wanted her to feel guilty.

“Percy.”

Funny how the pain in her voice was all it took to reduce me to nothing.

Every ounce of happiness that had filled my chest at hearing her personalized ringtone and seeing her name appear on my cell screen, abruptly vanished. It didn’t matter that I had been right to insist that Luke would leave her, or cheat on her, or stand her up, because Annabeth hadn’t listened. And now she was trying her hardest not to cry at her own Valentine’s Day party, while I sat in my living room smiling like the absolute _dickhead_ that I was.

I didn’t want her to feel guilty anymore. Now I was the guilty one, who felt like the nastiest person to ever grace the earth, and the saddest excuse for a best friend that Annabeth could have.

“I’m coming,” I told her, and I didn’t even wait to hear the click from the other end that meant that she believed me.

I don’t really remember running out of my apartment, or grabbing the keys, or locking the door. I don’t remember scurrying down the staircase like a terrified rodent, either. In fact, I was halfway through the parking lot before I realized that I’d forgotten my shoes. I left them. Lost in thought, I didn’t even notice I was halfway to her house until a car honked at me, shaking me from my thoughts.

The route to her place had become engrained in my muscles ages ago. In fact, I could’ve driven there with my eyes closed, a mere week after we’d moved to Ojai Valley, California. We had come the summer after we graduated college, and had eventually acquired jobs as a budding architect and a salesman respectively, meeting up on Fridays for movie nights and Saturdays for intense card games.

It was nice. Really nice. I got to see a hell of a lot more of her than I saw when we were at two different colleges in two different states on two different sides of the country. It was amazing to see her bright smile in person, instead of crookedly on the cracked screen of my old laptop that was doomed to bite the dust at any given moment. The dirt on her camera always seemed to mask the light that I knew was in her eyes, and my crappy speakers tended to mute the ambition that I knew filled her voice to the brim.

But after nearly a year in California, I rediscovered all of that light, and all of that ambition, to the point where I was practically in love with her eyes and her voice and just _her_. And I struggled on a day to day basis to keep that concealed. I got the feeling that she felt the same way about me, too. After a while, we were _so incredibly close_ to just giving in and risking everything we had earned, on the chance that maybe, _maybe_ we could win even more. We were closer to life than my laptop was to death.

But then she met Luke.

I spent a good deal of those lost Fridays and Saturdays pretending that I didn’t care if she was with him and not with me. And I went through a decent portion of the movies Netflix had to offer, but somehow I couldn’t remember a name, place, or line from any of them.

And then the Valentine’s Day party – my _god_.

She had been so excited to plan it because it happened to fall on the same day as her and Luke’s five month anniversary. She had insisted upon dragging me out to Walmart to get decorative placemats or forks or something. We were in the party aisle that was decorated all pink for the holiday, and she had stopped to examine a light red sundress, when I made a really stupid mistake.

“What do you think?” She held the dress up to her torso, modeling it for me.

“It’s nice,” I told her, and I meant it. I was sure it would look twice as good once she put it on. “I’m sure Luke will really appreciate it.”

Her face adopted a funny look. “Did I sense some sarcasm in there, Perseus Jackson?”

I hated when she used my full name. It either meant that she was angry with me, or she was pretty sure that she should be.

“I think you’re hearing things,” I said and looked away because she always knew when I was lying.

This time was no exception. She said slowly, “Percy, I know you’re not especially fond of Luke—”

“That’s an understatement,” I cut in.

“Yes, well, I would appreciate it if you could at least _pretend_ to be happy for me, for once. After all, Luke and I have lasted five months. That’s the longest I’ve ever been with anyone.”

Part of me wanted to scream that we’d unconventionally been ‘together’ for nearly fourteen years, but instead I said, “I just think you could do better.”

“I know you do,” she answered quickly, and folded her dress over her arm.

And I should’ve just left it that. But then I had to be an absolute idiot and tell her the truth.

“He’s going to hurt you, Annabeth,” I said in a low tone so that the nosy woman a clothes rack over couldn’t eavesdrop. “One way or another, he’s gonna leave, and it’s gonna be messy. I’m sorry, but I’m just being honest.”

Her irritable reply came after a moment, “And how, exactly, would you know?” I didn’t look up, but I knew that her hardened grey eyes were glaring daggers at me.

“I just know. I know guys like him.”

“Oh, you do?”

“Yes,” I stressed, “And I’ve seen what they do to girls like you. They… catch your eye, make you think that they love you, and then they drop you so quick that you don’t even have time to blink.”

“And then what?” she demanded.

“And then you turn to me,” I answered simply, looking up to meet her eyes. “You call me up in the middle of the night on the verge of tears, claiming you ‘never saw it coming’ and that you ‘thought he loved you,’ but he didn’t.” I swallowed. “He _doesn’t_.”

And then Annabeth’s face had turned that shade of red that used to send me running for the hills when we were younger and she was taller, and the stormy look in her eyes was the scariest thing I’d ever witnessed. But instead of running, I just looked at her to show that what I was saying was the truth. Maybe she knew that. Maybe she understood that I was absolutely right, and maybe, in her mind, she saw a cinematic montage of everything horrible Luke had ever said or done to support my point that he didn’t love her as much as she wanted him to. And maybe she even believed me little. But maybe that just made her feel even worse.

“I’ll tell you what,” she snapped, emphasizing every word, “When I call you up in the middle of the night on the verge of tears, you have my explicit permission to say, _‘I told you so_ ’.”

And then she had stormed off, past the nosy woman one clothes rack over, through the checkout line with a swipe of her credit card, and into my car where she sat, quietly fuming with her new red dress clutched her chest. When we reached her house she had gotten out and strode inside without as much as a goodbye.

Fast forward a week, and my car was sneaking up her driveway while I stared at the light blue front door I had stared at numerous times, yet suddenly seemed foreign. Putting the car into park, I waited for her to emerge from her house – a prospect that suddenly made me nervous. Did I mention that I felt guilty?

I don’t think I’ve ever felt guiltier, actually.

My stomach dropped a few miles when her front door swung swiftly open. She slipped quickly out of her house, leaving behind the sounds of laughter and music, and undoubtedly the smell of alcohol. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest, partly because it was cold but also because she had to hold herself together somehow. Her light blonde hair was straightened, which was something I’d never seen on her before, and wasn’t sure that I liked. I got the feeling Luke had something to do with it.

A thin, trembling trail of smoky breath escaped her lips, dissipating into the air, before she opened the passenger side door and sat awkwardly on the seat, not meeting my eyes. Her voice only wavered a little bit when she gave the order:

“Drive.”

So, I drove. Pretty fast, actually. In fact, I almost took out her mailbox when I turned too quickly and sent us lurching over the curb, jolting forwards and then backwards. I think I might have heard her let out a little snort when I uttered a particularly creative string of curses under my breath. I didn’t look at her to find out for sure. Instead I drove.

I didn’t really know where I was taking her, nor why I was driving so fast. I just knew that I had to get her as far away from her home as I could – as far away from _him_. I pulled onto the highway, and slammed the accelerator so quickly that our heads jerked against the headrests, and our lips twitched at the thrill.

“You alright?” It was probably a stupid question, but I had to ask.

“Yeah.”

We were quiet then, for a good mile. I was lost in my own thoughts, and she was undoubtedly lost in hers. She was probably cursing Luke’s name, and maybe mine as well, for not being the ignorant one, for once. I couldn’t imagine the buzzing that filled her mind; a combination of every curse, question, and accusation that lapped at her tongue, threatening to yank her away in a spiraling current. I wanted to turn to her and comfort her. To repeat clichés over and over until she almost believed them, but she wouldn’t, so I didn’t.

I hadn’t even noticed that the radio was on until I saw her hand reach feebly toward the dashboard out of the corner of my eye. Then the music suddenly turned _loud_.

I looked at her for the first time. Partly because I was startled by the excessive volume of the music, and partly because I wanted to make sure that she was okay. She sure looked okay. But that was one of the things about Annabeth that drove me mad. While she could take one look at me and immediately know how soggy my cereal had been that morning, I had a difficult time trying to read her. Her arms were still crossed, and the whites of her eyes were still tinted pink, but her expression was impassive. When she turned the music even louder, I saw a flash of something reckless in her eyes.

“You’re trying to make both of us go deaf!” I accused her in practically a shout, grinning slightly so that she knew I was kidding.

Annabeth’s eyebrows turned inwards mischievously, but she didn’t look up or respond. She just nodded her head to the music. I knew the song that was blaring in both my ears. It was an old Alanis Morissette tune that my mom used to hum around the house while doing chores. I could hear Annabeth humming quietly, too.

“ _‘Cause the love that you gave, that we made, wasn't able to make it enough, for you to be open wide. No_!” She whispered the lyrics in nearly perfect time with the song. I could hear genuine anger filling her voice with those words, and I reached over to turn the volume knob a little higher. She rolled down her window.

I joined her for the next lyric. “ _And every time you speak her name, does she know how you told me you'd hold me until you died?_ ”

Annabeth looked at me, a small smile pulling at her lips. “ _Till you died?_ ” she sang a little louder.

“ _But you’re still alive!_ ” I cried out of tune.

And then we burst into the chorus together, belting out the words like we were alone in the world and drunk off our own rage. I rolled down all the windows and the sunroof, and turned the volume as loud as it could go, gluing my shoeless foot to the accelerator and my sweaty palms to the wheel.

“ _And I'm here to remind you of the mess you left when you went away_!”

We were a few keys short of the singer’s range, but we were singing too loud to hear her, anyway. Annabeth was leaning forward in her seat, her hair whipping around her like her own personal cyclone. I saw a flash of her mouth, and she seemed to be smiling, so I smiled too, and sang even louder.

“ _It's not fair to deny me of the cross I bear, that you gave to me_!”

She let out a high cackling laugh that sounded slightly maniacal, and finally looked at me, her fierce silver eyes glowing with an odd mix of anger, agony, and utter insanity.

“ _You, you, you oughta know_!”

Part of me wanted the song and the road and the adrenaline to last forever; just the two of us in that moment together with nobody to interrupt and snatch her away. That same part of me wanted to put that song on repeat and keep driving until we were on the opposite side of the world from _him_ ; ignorantly blissful, and blissfully ignorant. But the song ended, and the one that followed was some slow ballad that didn’t quite fit the mood, so I returned the volume knob to its normal setting.

Beside me, Annabeth was shivering, her straightened blonde hair resembling that of a cavewoman who’d never seen a brush. I quickly rolled up all the windows and then pulled over into a random parking lot so that I could take off my jacket and give it to her. She accepted it gratefully, her teeth chattering too much for her to get out clear words. She pulled her knees to her chest and I saw a sudden image of her in that same position back on her staircase, her hands trembling and her eyes watery, while I sat at home, grinning at the sheer idea of her being in pain.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted suddenly. I wasn’t quite sure why I said it, but I felt like I needed to get it out.

“For your horrible singing?” she supposed after a moment. Her humor sounded strained. “You should be.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She looked down. “I know what you meant, Percy.”

“When I saw that you were calling, I smiled.”

“I’m sure you did.” Her voice was steady, and I didn’t understand why. She was the broken one; she shouldn’t have been trying to appear strong for my sake. It should’ve been the opposite.

“I was horrible to you, and I regret it,” I said picking at the splintered fabric of my armrest. “I never should’ve said those things to you last week. I should’ve kept my thoughts to myself.”

Annabeth closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about this now. I need a drink.”

“Milkshakes?” I suggested. Back when she wasn’t dating Luke, we used to go out for milkshakes at this ice cream place that wasn’t too far away. It was connected to a twenty four hour drug store, and if you asked nicely, the worker at the pharmacy would get you ice cream. It was a popular place in this city, even in the middle of the night.

She pursed her lips. “Not exactly what I had in mind, but I guess that’ll work.”

I drove a little slower this time, partly because I didn’t really want to get a speeding ticket with Annabeth Chase at midnight on the fourteenth of February, but also because tiredness was beginning to set in for both of us, any adrenaline having abruptly drained from our veins. My eyes kept flicking back towards her. She never moved from her position: head resting on the seatbelt while she stared absentmindedly out the window, stuck in a dazed reverie. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap. I considered reaching out to hold one, but figured that she wouldn’t want that kind of thing; not now.

We made it to the ice cream place eventually. Though, I realized with a start that I didn’t have my wallet with me. I let her get out of the car before I reached into the glove compartment and yanked out a bill of emergency money from between pages of the car’s handbook. When I met her on the sidewalk, she shot me a funny look, but didn’t ask questions. Her face looked a little less red than before, which I figured was a good sign. She had also tied her hair up into a sloppy bun that did a decent job of hiding all the knots. I almost forgot that it wasn’t curly. I heard her take a deep breath, and I saw her lift her chin a little, before she strode through the door I was holding open for her.

I’d made a lot of bad decisions that week, but taking her into that store had to be pretty high on the list.

The only other customer was a girl who sat at a table in the back of the room, her black boots propped up on the chair opposite hers, her tongue twirling the green straw of a drained vanilla milkshake. She was wearing a _Breaking Benjamin_ t-shirt, though she appeared to have cut off the bottom so that her bellybutton piercing and eagle tattoo were visible. Her ears were decorated with a long succession of multicolored rings, and more rings decorated her fingers, which were topped with electric blue nail polish that matched her striking eyes. Those eyes had been peering down at her phone when we walked in, but when the sound of Annabeth’s footsteps stopped abruptly, the girl looked up.

“Oh, hey!” she called, smiling at the sight of Annabeth. “How’ve you been, Wise Girl? I haven’t seen you in ages!” She winked, and took her feet off the chair, motioning for Annabeth to join her.

“Thalia,” Annabeth stated simply. I looked at her and the color had drained from her face.

_No_ , I thought to myself. _It couldn’t have been…_

Thalia caught sight of me, and her smile widened. “Look who it is!” she announced. “Gosh, Seaweed Brain, I would say you should cut that hair of yours, but it actually looks pretty hot. Don’t you think, Annabeth?”

But Annabeth wasn’t listening. She had gone silent the moment she’d caught sight of her old friend, and now her eyes had that look; that one that used to terrify me. I was suddenly grateful that I was no longer the person at the other end of it.

Annabeth took a few steps closer to Thalia, who seemed to be beginning to understand that something was not quite right. She sat up in her seat. “Something wrong?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” Annabeth’s reply shot from her mouth like a bullet, and pierced Thalia’s confidence like a blade. Thalia ran her tongue along the backside of her bottom teeth before replying.

“I don’t know why you’re giving me that look, Annie-girl, I haven’t done anything.”

“Oh really?” Annabeth cried in a loud voice. The teenager behind the register, who had previously been asleep, woke with a start. “Because, I’m nearly positive that you did something _pretty_ memorable lately… Say, about an hour ago. How about I give you a second to refresh yourself and then we can sort this out?”

I regained the ability to move my legs, and I hurried over, placing my hand lightly on Annabeth’s arm. “Is she the one who…” I trailed off, unsure how to pose the question without saying his name.

“Why don’t you answer that question for him, Thalia Grace?”

The other girl’s jaw hardened at hearing her full name. “I wish I could, _Annabeth Chase_ , but considering I was hosting a house party an hour ago, and therefore, nowhere near you, I think I’ll let you answer him.”

Annabeth suddenly reached into her pocket, and for a second – I swear to god – I thought she was about to pull out a knife or something (the kid behind the counter let out a squeak). But when Annabeth opened her palm, she wasn’t holding a blade, but her cell phone. She gave Thalia a tight-lipped grin before tapping a few buttons on the device, and then handing it over.

“Care to explain?”

Thalia stared at whatever was on Annabeth’s phone, and then opened and closed her mouth a few times. After a moment, Annabeth whisked her phone away and looked angrily at the image on the screen, her expression darkening as her eyes appraised it. I peered over her shoulder, and I suddenly understood.

“Oh, god,” I said quietly, swallowing the bile that had risen in my throat.

It was a picture. Not a terribly explicit picture, but not an innocent image by any means.

It showed Luke sitting on a couch – obviously at some sort of party – a beer in one hand and Thalia’s rear end in the other. They appeared to be making out, and Luke was smiling slightly, his eyes squeezed shut. The focus of the image was bad enough as it was, but I knew Annabeth well enough to know that there was more behind her anger than just the kiss. So I took the phone slowly from her hand and brought it closer to my eyes, trying to find what else was bothering her. After a few moments I saw it.

Red streamers in the background. Candy hearts dotting the table. Wine glasses sitting on pink napkins with the words _Happy Valentine’s Day_ printed on them in cursive font.

“This was taken tonight,” I realized aloud, the knowledge settling in my stomach like a brick. “They were at a party. But it wasn’t your party.”

“He told me he was sick,” Annabeth confirmed, and her voice sounded tight. “He told me that he wished he could make it, but he felt horrible, and that he’d stop by my house tomorrow if he felt better, to help clean up. And when he hung up the phone…” She laughed a humorless laugh. “He… He told me he loved me.”

Thalia shook her head. “Annabeth, you don’t understand—”

“And then I get a text message from Reyna, just before midnight, saying, ‘ _I’m sorry, love, but you deserve better_ ,’ with this photo attached, and I nearly scream because you were my best friend and I thought you were better than this.” She swallowed. “He cheated on me, but _you_ hurt me the worst.”

I couldn’t tell if her expression was more angry, or more pained.

“I never meant to upset you,” Thalia mumbled, and she said it with so much sincerity that I almost believed her. “I’m sorry that he lied to you, Annabeth, I really am. But he wasn’t cheating with me… Honest.”

“Well then what was that?” Annabeth demanded, motioning to the image I held tightly in my hand.

“It was…” Thalia trailed off. “It was nothing. He was drunk. It was a dare. Nothing’s going on between us – I can swear to it.” She looked down at the table. “I’ll be honest with you, Annabeth, I… I like girls.”

Annabeth almost said something, but then she stopped. “Wait. Really?”

Thalia shrugged. “Yeah. Took me some time to figure it out, but it’s true.”

Annabeth seemed to be trying to process this. “Okay…” she started. “But it still wasn’t right for you to kiss him.”

“It wasn’t,” Thalia agreed. “And I never would have if I had known that he lied to you.”

“Well, it wasn’t the first time,” Annabeth said with a sigh so sad, all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her and comfort her.

“You know what?” she said after a short silence, “I’m gonna go wait in the car. Percy, will you…” She motioned to the ice cream counter. That teenager was staring at us half scared, half amused.

“Yeah!” I nodded, probably a little harder than necessary. “Of course.”

Annabeth turned on her heel and left the store, leaving Thalia with her mouth half open, her bright eyes looking concerned. I walked over to the counter and ordered our usual: a blueberry shake for me, and mint chocolate chip for Annabeth. While the kid was getting our ice cream, Thalia spoke.

“Will she be alright?” she asked, her voice hollow.

“I think so,” I answered, not turning around. “It’s a lot to process. And I haven’t exactly made things easier for her.”

“You help her more than you know,” Thalia said.

I was quiet.

“You’re good to her, Percy.”

“Not always.”

“More often than Luke,” she stated. “I’m pretty sure he _was_ cheating on her, even if it wasn’t with me.”

I said, “I think so too. I think Annabeth would agree.”

“You don’t think she’ll, like, _forgive_ him. Do you?” Thalia wondered.

“I think she’s too smart for that.”

Thalia laughed a little. “That’s very true.”

The kid handed me our milkshakes, and I reached into my pocket to grab the money, but someone’s hand appeared beside me and passed the guy a ten dollar bill.

“On me,” Thalia murmured, patting my back halfheartedly and then turned and strode through the door. By the time I turned around, I only caught sight of her black boot disappearing from the view through the window.

*     *     *

There’s this overlook that Annabeth and I used to visit some days with a blanket and a picnic basket. It was pretty high up, and it looked out on the valley, displaying the most beautiful parts of the town like stars on a map or brushstrokes on a painting. We loved it there. However, we’d never gotten to experience the view at night until one in the morning on the fifteenth of February.

Lights speckled the valley, almost like the freckles that dotted Annabeth’s nose and cheeks in the summer. There wasn’t too much light up where we were, but the darkness that spread around us was kind and gentle, leaving us calm and unafraid.

We were sitting on the hood of my car, empty milkshakes dangling from our hands, my jacket over her shoulders – shoulders which were inches apart but not yet touching. She was shivering, and I wasn’t quite sure if she wanted me to acknowledge it. After about a minute, I just couldn’t let her stay cold any longer, so I put my arm around her, tentatively pulling her closer while holding my breath at the same time. She sighed and I watched the air travel from her lips to the open air over the valley, spreading over the town like a cloud before dispersing.

“I like it better this way,” she said, and I wasn’t quite sure what she was referring to. “The view,” she clarified. “It’s prettier at night than it is during the day.”

“I agree,” I told her, and I meant it. “We should do this more often.”

She was silent for a second, but then she suddenly looked up at me, the lights from below us balancing on her irises. “Was that your subtle way of asking me on a date?” The corners of her mouth were angled slightly upwards.

“I didn’t know this qualified as a date,” I said with a grin, broadly motioning around us. “Especially since you’re technically still with blondie.”

I regretted saying it the moment I heard it, and I grimaced, biting my tongue hard. But thankfully, Annabeth didn’t seem offended. She just closed her eyes and lowered her head until it rested on my shoulder. “ _Blondie_ and I were over the moment we laid eyes on each other, and you knew it,” she said. “Funnily enough, I knew it too. I just didn’t want to admit it.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” I said. “It’s not easy to separate what’s real, and what you wish could be real, when the fake stuff seems more important.” I winced then, remembering the disastrous end to my last relationship.

“Rachel?” she guessed in a quiet voice.

“No. _Clarisse_.”

Annabeth giggled. “The sarcasm is not appreciated, Perseus Jackson.”

“Don’t _Perseus Jackson_ me,” I scoffed.

“Why not?”

“Because when you say it like that, it means you’re angry with me.”

“Well, I _am_ angry with you,” she said loudly. “When I called you up an hour ago on the verge of tears, you smiled!”

“I did,” I admitted guiltily.

“And you still haven’t said it.”

“Said what?” I asked.

She shrugged. “You know… What I told you that you could say.”

I thought back, and I understood what she was referring to. “I’m not saying _‘I told you so,_ ’ Annabeth.”

“And, why not?”

“It’s indecent,” I said simply. “And I’ve been an indecent enough person as it is.”

“True,” she agreed. “But you’ve also been a fairly decent person, tonight. As annoying as that is.”

I looked down at her. “What does that mean?”

She took in a large breath and let it out slowly, allowing suspense to build in my chest. “I mean, that I’m still technically dating blondie,” she said finally. “And I’m pretty unhappy about that. It’s getting in the way of the things I want.”

She seemed ready to end the conversation there, but I reached over and lifted her chin with my free hand until she was looking straight at me, something that I could’ve easily mistaken for a blush spreading across her cheeks.

“And, what, exactly, do you want?”

The silence between my question and her answer felt like it lasted a lifetime. The darkness around us thickened and condensed. Several stars from below us flickered and then promptly went out. Her breaths came out sharp and jagged, like she was nervous, and I had a feeling mine sounded similar.

I didn’t realize exactly how loud I had been breathing until suddenly I wasn’t.

Suddenly I wasn’t staring at the lights in her eyes like they were old friends, or the white air from her mouth that shuddered and sputtered anxiously. I couldn’t see her straightened hair that was pulled back into a loose bun, or the redness that had tinted her cheeks a light pink.

Instead, I felt that light burning inside her, and her breathing that was no longer anxious but immersed. Her lips too busy to breath. Her mind too overwhelmed to worry. Our hearts too intertwined to separate.

Annabeth had always meant a lot to me, but I hadn’t realized the extent of my devotion until there was nothing else that I could think about: Nothing else but the fact that it was one o’ seven on the fifteenth of February, and Annabeth was in my arms, her jaw in my hand, the pounding of her pulse hammering against my fingers, in a syncopated rhythm with my own heavy heartbeat.

It didn’t matter that it was freezing cold, and that the lights from the city were beginning to go out one by one, like candles being extinguished. Nor that the darkness was beginning to curl around us like a dank blanket. It didn’t matter that Annabeth was still technically dating “blondie,” because she and I had unconventionally been together for fourteen years. And it was about time we won a little.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading :) I write more fanfiction at altessah.tumblr.com


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